War of Words with Iran -- Beginning World War IV?

The Iranians are threatening to cutoff oil supplies if they are attacked. Condi Rice responded that we'll "wait and see."

"Well, I think we shouldn't place too much emphasis on a move of this kind; after all Iran is very dependent on oil revenue," Rice told Fox News Sunday.

Asked whether Iranian leaders had already rejected a six-nation diplomatic initiative, by insisting there be no preconditions for new talks on their nuclear program, Rice said Iran had not yet received the proposal and would need time to assess it.

"It's sort of a major crossroads for Iran, and it's perhaps not surprising that they will need a little bit of time to look at it," she told Fox News.

Washington has offered to join European countries in talks with Iran about the nuclear program, but says Iran must first suspend uranium enrichment. Iran has so far said enrichment is a national right.

I like how the precondition for negotiations is for Iran to give us exactly what we've been demanding all along. If they stopped enrichment, what more would there be to negotiate? I don't think Iran is meant to take this proposal very seriously at all. In fact, they are meant to reject it so that they look stubborn and irrational. In reality it's the Americans who are acting strangely. But I guess that all boils down to the fact that we plan to invade Iran soon. Probably within the next year.

Wouldn't it be convenient for the Republicans if Iran were to provoke us somehow, say right before the midterm elections in November? It sure seems like we're trying to goad Iran into doing something stupid, but some have raised the possibility of a false flag attack. That would mean that we'd attack ourselves and then blame it on Iran. It's been an old standby trick for Americans going back decades if not centuries. Still works like a charm.

Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Iran will not be a cakewalk. Iran is much larger than Iraq and their economy has not been crippled by sanctions like Iraq's was. I think it would be insane to attack them, but just because it's insane doesn't mean the neocons won't do it. In fact, it probably increases the odds that they will. They like to keep people off-balance.

If it looks like we're about to go into Iran we need to have massive protests in every American city. We need to shut down commerce and the government by use of strikes, civil disobedience and massive protests. We cannot let this happen. To attack Iran would be to basically start World War III (or World War IV if you count the Cold War as WWIII). Of course, that's assuming it hasn't started already with our invasion of Iraq. It's hard to know what has begun until you're well into it.

Personally, I think the Cold War counts as World War III if you include all of the sub-wars within it, such as Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and stand-offs like the Cuban missile crisis. Conflicts like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea were really just proxy-wars, with the USSR and USA each backing a different side in the fight. We were still fighting, but it didn't get too "hot" which might've resulted in the usage of nuclear weapons. The fact that we used all of these proxies is what makes it a global war in my opinion. And certainly, many millions of people died.